Guard Youth Corps Teaches New Drill To Md. Dropouts

Early on a gray and rainy Friday morning, two dozen teenagers stand
in rows in the dimly lighted canteen room of Building 4305 of the
Aberdeen (Md.) Proving Ground. At an hour when most people their age
are just dragging themselves to school, these youths are ready for
calisthenics.

The sergeant, a young man wearing a polo shirt and sweats, calls the
platoon to attention. The chant begins: "More P.T., Sergeant, more
P.T.! We love it, we love it, we want more of it! Make it hurt, Sarge,
make it hurt!''

They are hardly regulation, these teenagers. Yet, today, and for the
past six weeks, they have been trying out a new drill as the first
members of the Maryland National Guard Military Youth Corps.

In a low, brown-brick building with only a number to distinguish it
from all the other look-alike buildings at the military base near
Baltimore, 71 high school dropouts from across Maryland and the
District of Columbia are trying to learn the skills they need to pass
the General Educational Development test.

The "Challenge'' program in which these young men and women have
voluntarily enrolled is part of a national trend toward alternative,
residential programs for students who cannot function in mainstream
classrooms. To deal with the nation's dropouts, Congress has called out
the National Guard.

From his office on the first floor of Building 4305, Col. Vernon A.
Sevier (pronounced suh-VEER) oversees much of the day-to-day workings
of the Maryland program. A retired Air National Guard pilot with a
doctorate in education, Colonel Sevier worked for 20 years for the
Y.M.C.A. Today, he serves as deputy director at this site, one of 10
nationwide.

To the side of Colonel Sevier's desk stands the bright-orange pilot
seat from the Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport plane that he used to
fly. It has been rigged up as a rocking chair, for the retirement years
that he has yet to use for relaxation.

"This is an emotionally draining experience,'' he says, reflecting
on the charge that he and his colleagues have taken on.

It is a frustrating charge, too. Although the staff members repeat
again and again how much the corps members' behavior has improved since
their arrival, enforcing discipline remains a tough job. For it is
discipline, combined with respect, that will give many of these
dropouts the wherewithal to succeed.

But after months or even years spent outside the system, the logic
of punishment and respect is anything but clear. "For many of these
kids,'' says Col. Thomas Johnson, who runs the Maryland site, "it's, 'I
didn't do anything wrong--you just don't like me.'''

A Chance To Change

Established by Congress in 1989, the Challenge program has its roots
in the various youth programs that the Guard has been running since the
1930's. It is operated by the Guard under the auspices of the U.S.
Defense Department. Funding for fiscal 1993 was $44 million, and the
Guard is seeking $70 million for the fiscal year that began on Oct.
1.

The program not only gives students the opportunity to change the
course of their lives, but also provides a new role for the Guard
itself in the post-Cold War era.

The Maryland program offers students the chance to earn a G.E.D.
diploma, a driver's license, and a stipend worth $2,200 toward future
education or job-training expenses. After they leave the program, the
students will be assigned Guard members as mentors for a year to
reinforce what they have learned in Aberdeen.

The corps also provides a "life skills'' curriculum designed to help
its members succeed in the workplace. Students learn to create
rÀesumÀes, interview for jobs, and interact with
authority figures at work.

Under the supervision of the cadre--Guard personnel who move them
from activity to activity--corps members can also take camping trips,
do community-service projects, and, it is hoped, benefit from being in
a disciplined, group atmosphere.

Yet, the Maryland corps is no boot camp

The physical training is not unduly harsh, and there are no brutal
drill sergeants pushing cadets' faces into the mud. While most of the
students in the canteen are obediently doing their pushups, some in the
back row are also complaining to each other in quite colorful terms,
despite the deputy commander's presence.

Colonel Sevier gets frustrated by the lack of discipline and respect
he sees among the corps members. Inspecting the weight-training room,
stocked with donated equipment, he points out that a pedal has broken
off a stationary bike. "Look at this,'' he says. "This happened the
first day we got this.'' But he admits that his expectations may be
high. "We're too hard on ourselves,'' he says of himself and Colonel
Johnson.

Although they may lack order, these teenagers are trying to make a
significant break from old behavior patterns. They are also not the
worst of the bunch. In keeping with program rules, none of them is on
parole or awaiting trial, and none is currently using drugs.

Perhaps most important, they are all volunteers, and can leave any
time they like. That they have chosen to come to the corps and stick
with it for six weeks is in itself heartening.

Their only "sin,'' as Colonel Sevier puts it, is that they left
school.

"I didn't learn anything in school,'' one corps member says.

Although some of the corps members at Aberdeen are as sullen as
teenagers anywhere can be, others are bright and enthusiastic,
radiating an infectious energy. Kenneth Boughan, who says the program
is "doing me good,'' speaks frankly about the "bad stuff, street-corner
stuff, like drug dealing'' he'd been involved in near his home in
Baltimore.

Grinning shyly, he says he now hopes to be a biologist, perhaps for
the Navy.

Even less enthusiastic corps members like Kimberly Robertson--who
grouses that "they think we're in the Army'' and complains about the
food--ponder exciting futures of college, architecture, firefighting,
and carpentry.

In the teenagers' current surroundings, those futures seem far
away.

The building had been empty for more than a year before the Guard
rented it, and it needed a great deal of work before the group could
move in. Even so, it is not a place that exudes charm. The building is
nearly colorless, save for the bright turquoise doors that contrast
with the white-washed cinder-block walls. The bedrooms, which corps
members share, are decorated only by the "No Smoking in Bed'' signs
stenciled in red on the walls. The beat-up, castoff furniture, though,
is kept uniformly neat.

"We clean more than we go to class,'' says De'mon Harris, of
Baltimore, echoing a sentiment expressed by several students. But,
according to corps ethic, the journey to self-esteem begins with taking
pride in one's home, no matter how dingy.

A Difficult Transition

At the beginning of the 22-week program, each student takes a test
to determine on which parts of the G.E.D. curriculum he or she most
needs to focus.

Each week, corps members spend six hours in classes. For another two
hours a day, they attend smaller tutorials and work on one of 20 new
computers.

"At school, you didn't have to do your work,'' says Gary Wood, a
student from Aberdeen who speaks highly of the individual attention he
gets from the teachers. "Here, you have to.''

While his students work quietly at their own pace, Capt. Eric
Hopkins of the Army National Guard, the program's chief instructor,
draws a bell curve, which he sections off into three parts.

"These''--he draws a 21 over the section on the right--"they're
ready to take the G.E.D. now,'' he says. "These in the middle, they're
on the fence.'' He says it will be up to those 24 students to take
themselves over that fence. He circles those two numbers, 21 and 24.
These are the students he and his colleagues may be able to help.

He says the other 26 may get to come back to the program, although
their prospects are grimmer. Captain Hopkins shrugs his shoulders
slightly, as though himself feeling the weight of the task before
them.

That task is more than just academic. Some of the corps members,
Captain Hopkins points out, "are not used to three meals a day, to
their own beds, their own quiet time.'' As a result, many students at
Aberdeen had a difficult transition period in the first weeks of the
program.

Already, there is a high attrition rate: As of the first week of
November, 62 of 133 students had left the program. Some were disruptive
and were asked to leave; others found the discipline and routine too
much and, once again, dropped out.

Although the program's primary mission is to prepare these students
to pass the G.E.D. exam, the staff members who run the Maryland corps
also take seriously their roles as exemplars. When the students first
went to get haircuts, Colonel Sevier says with pride, many got
Army-style cuts like the cadre members wear. A majority now also wear
their pants bloused out over their boots like the cadre, and take pride
in their platoon leaders, arguing over which platoon has the best
sergeant.

The corps staff members not only act as role models, representing
what it can mean to be a functioning member of society, but also take
the time to interact with--and watch over--these teenagers in the way
they desperately need.

Sgt. 1st Class Michael Bryant, the recruitment officer who is
overseeing the enlistment of the next group of youth-corps members,
acknowledges that becoming a part of these students' lives is an
intense experience. "You've got to have that love for kids,'' he
says.

But the kind of closeness bred in the program can also be painful.
During a recent weekend when the students were allowed to go home, one
young man was stabbed to death, apparently the victim of a robbery.

The following Monday, the students "just shut down,'' says Army
Reserve Capt. Michell Graff, a program counselor. The students wanted
answers, wanted to assign blame for a problem that has no simple
explanation.

Inspiration for Some

The boys hanging out in back of Building 4305, just out of the
drizzling wet that has started up again, shout out to visitors leaving
the compound.

"What do you think of it?'' one asks. Another answers for him: "It
sucks. I'm waiting for parole; this is jail.''

But other corps members have begun to find some inspiration. Ronald
Cousins, a Baltimore native enrolled in the program, would like to be a
carpenter. He gestures around the canteen to describe the benefits of
his chosen profession.

"We can make all these things: chairs, things like that plaque on
the wall,'' he says. "And then you can look back on it and say, 'I did
that.'''

When they leave Building 4305 for the last time, some of the members
of the first Maryland Guard youth corps may have their G.E.D.'s. Others
may also have driver's licenses. But what Captain Graff hopes they take
with them is something less tangible.

"When they leave,'' she says, "I would like for them to look back
and say, 'Yes, I have learned something, and it is of
value.'''

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